Growing into her role

Tuesday

Sep 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 29, 2009 at 12:59 PM

David Briggs

A smile swept wide across Lei Wang-Francisco’s face as her future husband knelt to a knee.

Wang was stunned. Earlier during the match last November, everything seemed normal to the Missouri volleyball team’s setter. Her boyfriend, Isaac, sat unshaven in a T-Shirt, jeans and sandals in his normal spot above the Tigers’ tunnel at the Hearnes Center. They saw each other and quickly waved.

Now, here he was in a suit and armed with a bouquet. Francisco had hurried to his car late in the match. He cleaned up, changed and grabbed the ring. Then he made his post-match approach behind the line of volleyball players signing autographs along press row.

A knowing crowd of teammates, coaches, friends and Francisco’s family erupted.

For the 25-year-old senior from Shanghai, China, it’s been a memorable five-year journey at Missouri.

As a freshman, she could barely communicate with her teammates. Today, Wang-Francisco is married and a recent honors graduate from MU’s business school. And, most important for the Tigers’ volleyball program, she has evolved into one of the more accomplished players in school history.

Heading into tomorrow night’s match at Baylor, Wang-Francisco is third on MU’s all-time career assists list (4,164). If she maintains her pace of 34.79 assists per match, she could challenge for second place (4,954) and ascend among the top five in Big 12 history.

Is there another storybook moment left in the script?

“I’m not very good at predicting the future,” Wang-Francisco said.

But she will say this: “We can definitely make the tournament.”

It is not hard to place faith in her. Wang-Francisco is prone neither to hyperbole nor blind forecasts of hope. She is instead fortified with a rising sense of purpose and the belief that anything less than a trip to the NCAA Tournament, which the Tigers (10-4, 2-1 Big 12) missed for the first time in nine seasons last year, will be a disappointment.

She tells her teammates as much, too.

Inclined more toward fitting in when she first arrived in Columbia after two years at the Shanghai Sports School, Wang-Francisco has steadily set loose a caring but strong-willed personality.

Not that this was always a good thing. Coach Wayne Kreklow describes her as “very emotional,” which would have made the 5-foot-11 setter a good outside hitter if only she were a couple inches taller. But sometimes her demeanor in down times swung a bit too much.

As a captain and setter, Wang-Francisco knew this needed to change.

“It’s like the captain of the ship,” Kreklow said. “If the ship is in rough weather or it’s floundering, you need all hands on deck and you look to the captain. You don’t want a captain freaking out up in the tower. You’ve got to have someone who people can look to for reassurance and confidence. It’s important to have a setter and a captain who is under control, and Lei is doing a much better job of that this year.”

She’s even assumed a de facto coaching role, her brisk commands to the team’s freshmen providing a soundtrack to summer workouts.

“Be louder!”

“Get behind the line.”

Said one such first-year player, Marissa Ferri: “I didn’t even know her, and she’s already nitpicking on me. So I said, ‘I’m just going to call you Ma, because you remind me of my mom.’ ”

Wang-Francisco, who plans to finish her master’s degree in health care administration in 2011, wonders now if she seemed bossy. But she can’t help but take charge.

Even the idea for a volleyball-themed proposal was her suggestion.

“She’s kind of become a natural leader,” said her husband, who met Lei nearly four years ago through a mutual friend from Shanghai. “Some people, they might try to take the lead because they think it’s important. She’s kind of backed into it almost in that she always tries to do the right thing.”